Search results

Although business incubators are a widely recognized form of entrepreneurial support, this paper aims to challenge the assumption that incubation is necessarily beneficial for early-stage entrepreneurs, and considers cases where, due to variability in the motives and behaviours of entrepreneurs, incubation may be unwarranted or even undesireable.

This study presents a theoretically derived typology of incubated entrepreneurs, based on their entrepreneurial competence and capacity for learning, which asserts that incubation may be unwarranted or even undesireable for three of the four proposed entrepreneur types. Qualitative data from interviews with entrepreneurs and managing directors from 10 business incubators is used to illustrate the existence of these types.

The data provides evidence of entrepreneurial types whose incubation may be counterproductive to the goals and objectives of their host incubators.

Implications for incubator management (intake screening and ongoing monitoring of portfolio) are developed and aimed at improving the outcomes of business incubation for stakeholders.

The paper contributes to the incubation typology literature by challenging a widely held assumption that entrepreneurs have the potential to benefit from incubation and by reconceptualizing incubators as “crucibles” that perform a critical function in distinguishing high-potential entrepreneurs.

This chapter places previous incubator-incubation literature within a relevant geographic and policy context, and extracts the reasons for the wide-scale adoption of the incubator model as a new venture creation mechanism. Arguments developed highlight that in the flurry of political lobbying during the 1990s–2000s leading to the rapid expansion of incubators-incubation across the European Union (EU), policy makers, practitioners and researchers alike failed to focus on what is key to understanding incubators’ true impact — internal incubation processes. A review of incubator development and impact at the level of two EU member states, Germany and Italy, is presented. This allows for a clearer context-bound sense of the state-of-art in incubator-incubation research to emerge. In turn it becomes possible to clearly highlight the direction of further research in the area where there is a stalemate between two opposing camps — one which has produced evidence to suggest that incubators make a significant difference in reducing start-up risk, and the other, which believes incubators do not give tax payers value-for-money. Structured in this way, this chapter is able to draw attention to the essential ‘missing ingredient’ in previous research which is key to understanding the impact incubators can have. This ingredient is the dynamics of the internal process of incubation.

This article aims to conduct a bibliometric study using structural and relational approaches amongst the extracted documents and investigates the connections between business incubation and entrepreneurship-related papers to describe the field comprehensively.

A total of 259 articles have been retrieved from Scopus database in order to conduct the bibliometric analysis. Performance analysis and science mapping techniques of bibliometrics have been used along with data visualisation software, i.e. VOSviewer and RStudio. The network collaboration and intellectual structures, i.e. bibliographic coupling, co-occurrence analysis, word cloud and trending topics, have been presented to identify the field’s latest trends, themes and development.

The findings highlight annual publication trends, including the most frequently cited articles, the most productive authors, countries and highly influential journals that contribute the most to the said field. The intellectual structures have been developed to identify research themes and trends by running co-occurrence analysis and bibliographic coupling. The findings of this study emphasize the value of technology transfer, mentorship programmes, entrepreneurship education and an emphasis on innovation and creativity through entrepreneurial universities and academia. These findings provide policymakers and administrative officials with crucial guidance for fortifying the pillars of entrepreneurship and education for the comprehensive development of the economy. Further, this article attempts to identify the most influential and relevant publications as well as the newest trends in the area of business incubation in combination with entrepreneurship.

The article contributes not only to broaden the scope of knowledge on the said research discipline but also to comprehend how the field has evolved over a period of time. This study also attracts the interest of scholars/academicians, leading to the significant production of scholarly documents in business incubation and entrepreneurship.

The field of entrepreneurship and business incubation is one of the important pillars for the growth and development of the economy. This piece contributes to this arena by focusing on the areas that must be taken care of by developing the entrepreneurial ecosystem and fostering the progress of startups. The fundamentals of this research highlight the importance of mentorship programs, entrepreneurship education, technology transfer and a focus on innovation and creativity through entrepreneurial education and efforts by universities/academia, giving an important direction to the policymakers and administration for strengthening the pillar of entrepreneurship and education for the holistic development of the economy.

Business incubation is an emerging field of academic research connected to startups, venture formation and entrepreneurship ecosystems, making it a potential scholarly discipline. This study presents a thorough bibliometric analysis over the last three decades, offering comprehensive details on the most significant developments in the field of business incubation. Moreover, the various analytical methods applied to this study make it more attractive.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the characteristics of the incubation industry, government funding, and the intensity of funding for different services. Because the incubation industry has particular characteristics, government funding varies for different services, and its intensity varies with service.

Government funding is classified as incubation subsidy and incubation incentive. Besides, incubation services include property management, business mentoring as well as investment and financing. Based on this, this study examines the influence mechanism of different subsidy and incentive on incubation services by using the generalized propensity score matching method.

The empirical results show that subsidy and incentive have an inverse-U shape effect on property management service, but a linear effect on business guidance service. Furthermore, subsidy does not affect investment and financing service, but incentive that can have a significant impact.

The theme of government funding and incubator services plays an important role in helping entrepreneurs expand their businesses. Incubation subsidy and incentive can provide important support to help enterprises obtain more preferential loans, technical services and technical support in the incubator. Applying it to incubator services can provide better technology and entrepreneurship guidance. These services can help new entrepreneurs understand products and markets, and how to develop more successfully in the early stage. In short, incubators supported by government funds can provide important support to entrepreneurs to help them successfully realize their business plans.

This paper presents a conceptual framework based on a literature review and the findings from an empirical study using data collected from entrepreneurs (business incubatees) over a 15-year period (2004–2019). This paper aim is to discuss and propose areas to consider when (re)designing business incubation.

The data set is based on the experiences of five different cohorts (n = 100), each of which spent 18–24 months participating in a start-up programme sponsored by a business incubation centre (BIC) located in Ireland. To add further depth and nuance to this paper’s findings, an expert focus group was undertaken.

The findings highlight the importance of different activities and skills in a BIC over time and recommend the inclusion of a number of activities in a BIC framework. The activities include continued professional development (CPD), action research, participation in a simulation, development of emotional intelligence, leadership skills and mindset and critical reflection.

This paper presents an appropriate conceptual framework for the (re)design of business incubation. The framework facilitates an improved understanding of the evolution of entrepreneurial activities and outcomes associated with engagement with a BIC.

BIC 4.0, as described in this paper, proposes success as multi-faceted and including space, facilities, networks, mentors, professional development, reflective practice, emotional development and engagement with continuous professional development.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to provide a critical assessment of the literature on business incubation effectiveness and second, to submit a situated theoretical perspective on how business incubation management can provide an environment that supports the development of incubatee entrepreneurs and their businesses.

The paper provides a narrative critical assessment of the literature on business incubation effectiveness. Definitional issues, performance aspects and approaches to establishing critical success factors in business incubation are discussed. Business incubation management is identified as an overarching factor for theorising on business incubation effectiveness.

The literature on business incubation effectiveness suffers from several deficiencies, including definitional incongruence, descriptive accounts, fragmentation and lack of strong conceptual grounding. Notwithstanding the growth of research on this domain, understanding of how entrepreneurs and their businesses develop within the business incubator environment remains limited. Given the importance of relational, intangible factors in business incubation and the critical role of business incubation management in orchestrating and optimising such factors, it is suggested that theorising efforts would benefit from a situated perspective.

The identification of specific shortcomings in the literature on business incubation highlights the need for more systematic efforts towards theory building. It is suggested that focusing on the role of business incubation management from a situated learning theory perspective can lend itself to a more profound understanding of the development process of incubatee entrepreneurs and their firms. Theoretical propositions are offered to this effect, as well as avenues for future research.

To generate and test a coherent framework of incubation strategies and interventions that can be deployed to encourage enterprise development through new venture creation in local economies.

Postal questionnaire to new ventures, combined with ongoing engagement of and consultation with incubation practitioners and local economic development professionals.

Seven generic incubation strategies were identified and developed. Four focus on a premises‐driven approach to incubation, and three on a more process‐based approach. All seven strategies represent opportunities for tailored and hence targeted approaches to the development of incubators and incubation services.

The study focused on one rural county in England. There is a need to test the strategies in other contexts, to determine their wider relevance.

The seven incubation strategies can be used to develop tailored approaches to incubation, within a comprehensive framework of incubation “options”. The authors suggest that a combination of approaches is developed as the basis for effective local incubation practice.

The paper provides a framework for developing incubation strategies that offers coherence and the opportunity for “bottom‐up” yet integrated approaches.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and summarize growth and development of technology business incubation system in India. The study in this route tries to explore factors which include various actors and agencies influencing the process of incubation and innovation.

The paper in route to access the role of different actors and agencies situated around the incubation process is being executed through the systems of innovation framework. Data have been collected from the secondary sources including government department, ministries and other sources.

The study besides providing an in-depth analysis of the incubation process in India finds that the process is relatively new in the Indian context and lacks a profound policy for escalating the process of technological incubation. The study also finds that over the years India’s innovation potential has escalated significantly which in a way can be seen as an optimistic result in the growth and development of technology business incubation.

The proposed study is one of the few in this category, especially while analyzing technology business incubation with respect to India. The study also tries to add on literature in the domain of technology incubation especially in the context of India.

The primary purpose of this article is to propose a conceptual base from which an appropriate management and leadership development framework for supporting capability building of professionals and practitioners across the UK incubation community can be built. Furthermore, it provides insights into how such a framework could be applied through an initiative developed in the East Midlands region of the UK.

A review of the research in this field is summarised as an empirical background to proposing a conceptual framework. The author explores the evolution of incubation and identifies specific models and processes of incubation, as reported elsewhere in the specialist literature. This framework is further explored within the context of its applicability as a tool for building management and leadership development capability.

The author recognises the lack of published research in this field, despite its importance for enhancing incubation performance outcomes. Three main framework components are drawn from this comprehensive review. Four different learner types are identified, and these form the basis of outline incubation management and leadership development programme options, with differentiated indicative syllabi.

This article reinforces the need for, and has demonstrated the importance of, enhancing human capital capability within professionals and practitioners in the incubation community. The conceptual framework presented in this paper provides a foundation from which learning and development programmes can be provided.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact and success of a business incubation project on its participants. The study aims to consider the impact of the project in terms of developing and supporting entrepreneurial activity within Wales. It seeks to build on and enhance existing business incubation literature and contribute to the field by identifying “good” practice and considers the measurement of success within such projects.

This study employs an individual case study methodology which evaluates all aspects of the Graduate Teleworking Initiative (GTi) project. A range of qualitative and quantitative methods is utilised to capture the views of aspiring entrepreneurs. In addition the progress of entrepreneurs is compared with “distance travelled” methodologies developed by other EU programmes, using the experiences of GTi businesses as individual case histories. In addition, this paper looks at additional ways to measure the success of this type of project, based on a study of the current academic literature and work currently being undertaken with funding agencies in Wales in respect of economic regeneration. The case study method is recognised as the most effective research strategy to capture the “rich” experience of complex projects.

The study finds that, if incubation facilities are to receive continuing support, the measurement of success needs to be broader than a set of statistical outputs. The academic literature queries whether business incubation works, and invites us to decide if the end result is of value or not. This paper considers additional ways to measure the success of this type of project. Applications for public funding in support of business incubators as part of an overall economic regeneration strategy should be able to provide a wider evaluation of effectiveness, and this paper seeks to develop a model to this purpose, to assist the ongoing development of incubator facilities in Wales.

This study will be of interest to business incubation providers and entrepreneurial researchers in identifying valid and achievable success measures and should inform developments in this field.

The paper provides a unique insight into a successful business incubation project and identifies the key to its on going success. Furthermore, the study identifies generic measures of success for a typical business incubation project based on the GTi experience and a detailed investigation of alternative business incubators.